UNITED
168
UNITED
Hayne's brilliant oration was replied to by Webster
(1S30) in, perhaps, the greatest speech ever dehvered
in the Senate. It has been said that Webster took
ground on a position toward which the greater part of
the nation was steadily advancing, that is in the di-
rection of nationaUsm. Hayne's sentiments found
favour in the South alone. The theory which he
had championed South Carolina soon sought to put
into practice. In 1832 Congress passed a new tariff
law, which omitted many of the objectionable fea-
tures of the Act of 1S2S, though it still contained the
principle of protection.
In South Carolina, where the objection to the law was strongest, the governor convoked the legisla- ture in special session. That body issued a call for a state convention to meet at Columbia 19 Nov., 1832, and on 24 Nov. there was passed by that convention the famous Ordinance of Nullification. This de- clared the tariff law null and void so far as concerned South Carolina, forbade the payment of duties after 1 Feb., 1833, and prohibited appeals arising under the law from being taken to the United States courts. If Congress attempted to reduce the state to obedi- ence. South Carolina would regard her connexion with the Union as dissolved. The legislature passed sev- eral laws to carry the ordinance into effect. Among them was an act that provided for placing the state on a war footing for the purpose of resisting the authority of the United States. Another act pro- vided a test oath for all officers of the state, by means of which Union men were to be excluded from holding positions of honour or trust under South Carohna. President Jackson, who had been re-elected in 1832, does not appear to have been alarmed at the condi- tion of affairs in South Carolina. He instructed the collector of customs at Charleston to perform the duties of his office, and, if necessary, to use force. He also issued an address to the Nullifiers. In it he urged them to yield; he hkewise told them that "the laws of the United States must be executed. . . . Those who told you that you might peacefully pre- vent their execution deceived you. . . . Their object is disunion, and disunion by armed force is treason". When Congress met in December, 1832, the presi- dent wanted the passage of an act giving him power to collect tariff duties by force of arms. A great de- bate followed on this measure, which was known as the Force Act. Speaking for the South, Calhoun as- serted the right of a state to nullify acts of Congress deemed injurious to her interests, and also the right to secede from the Union. Webster denied the right of nullification and secession, and upheld the Union and the Constitution. Henry Clay, fearing a civil war, now came forward with a compromise. He proposed that the tariff of 1832 should be reduced gradually till 1842, when on all imported articles there should be an ad valorem duty of twenty per cent. This Compro- mise Tariff became a law in March, 1833. A second convention met in South Carohna, and repealed the Ordinance of Nulhfication.
The acquisition of territory from Mexico led to an- other great controversy between North and South, or rather between the free and the slave states. In August, 1846, President Polk asked Congress for 82,000,000 "for the settlement of the boundary ques- tion with Mexico". Mexico had abolished slavery long before (1827), and Da\'id Wilmot of Pennsyl- vania moved that the money should be granted, provided that neither slavery nor involuntary servi- tude should exist in any territory that might be ac- quired from Mexico. The bill passed the House of Representatives, the Southern members voting almost solidly against it; in the Senate it never came to a vote. When finally the measure did pass, the Wilmot proviso was stricken out. Later it was Bought to attach this anti-slavery provision to other bills. While it did not pass, it aroused the most bitter
feeling in the South. At a meeting of Southern mem-
bers of Congress an address written by Calhoun was
adopted and signed, and then circulated throughout
the country. Among other things it complained of
the constant agitation of the slavery question by the
Abolitionists. In 1849 the legislature of Virginia
adopted resolutions of which one declared that "the
attempt to enforce the Wilmot Proviso" would rouse
the people of Virginia to "determinedresistanceat all
hazards and to the last extremity". The Missouri
legislature also protested against the principle of the
Wihnot proviso. One of the toasts at a dinner to
Senator Butler, in South Carohna, was "A Southern
Confederacy". Besides this general Southern oppo-
sition to the Wilmot proviso, that section complained
of the difficulty of recovering slaves who had escaped
to the free states. In almost every part of the South
there was a demand that the territories be opened to
slavery. Some of the legislatures contended that the
abolition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia
would be a direct attack on the institutions of the
Southern States.
In the North, pubhc sentiment was not less excited. The legislatures of the free states, except Iowa, re- solved that Congress had the power and was in duty bound to prohibit slavery in the territories. Many states instructed their congressmen to do everything po.ssible toward abolishing the slave trade in the Dis- trict of Columbia. When Congress met in Decem- ber, 1849, it had serious business on hand. It then seemed as if the Union were about to be broken up, and that in its place there were to be two republics — one composed of free states and one made up of slave states. As in the excitement of 1832, so now again Henry Clay came forward as a peacemaker. In his patriotic task he was assisted by both Webster and Calhoun. Several bills were at last passed by Con- gress. Collectively they are known as the Compro- mise Measures of 18.50. By this treaty between the sections it was provided that Cahfornia be admitted as a free state, and that the .slave trade, but not the in- stitution of slavery, be prohibited in the District of Columbia. These bills were agreeable to the North. The measures in which the South was interested were: territorial governments for Utah and New Mexico without anv restriction on slavery; and the payment to Texas of $10,000,000 for abandoning her" claim to considerable neighbouring territory, and for having surrendered her revenue system to the United States at the time of her annexation. The measure in which the South was most interested, howc\'er, was a more stringent law for the return of fugitive slaves. Dur- ing the debates on the measure. President Taylor died (9 .July, 18.50). He was succeeded by the vice- president, Millard Fillmore. A law relative to the return of fugitive slaves had been passed in the ad- ministration of President Washington (1793). The new law empowered United States commissioners to turn over a coloured person to anybody who claimed him as an escaped slave. It also provided that the negro could not give testimony. It further provided that all citizens, when summoned to do so, were re- quired to assist in the capture of the slave, or, if it seemed necessary, in delivering him to his owners. Any citizen who harboured a fugitive slave or pre- vented his recapture was li.able to fine and imprison- ment . The Comjiromise of 1850 was expected to last forever. As we shall see, it became the very seed- plot of graver troubles. Slave catchers in great num- bers invaded the North and hunted up negroes who had escaped twenty years, or even a generation be- fore, and with the assistance of the United States marshals took them back to slavery. Both the free negroes and the whites in the North interfere<l with the officers in the performance of their duties. In this way many negroes regained their liberty. Dis- turbances occurred in many Northern cities, and some
